Estates-General

The Estates-General was a legislative and consultative assembly in the Kingdom of France that existed from 1302 to 1789, although it was not called from 1614 to 1789. The assembly (in 1789) had 294 seats for the First Estate (200 for upper, 94 for lower), 270 for the Second Estate, and 578 for the Third Estate, but all of them received one vote each, giving more power to the elites of society and taking away power from the lower classes. In addition, the king had the privilege of sending out a lettre de cachet, meaning that he could arbitrarily make decisions over the Estates-General. The Estates-General was reconvened after over 150 years in recess in 1789 in response to a food crisis, with the lower classes being tricked into voting for a tax increase; the upper classes were exempted from the tax. In 1789, the discontent among the poor skyrocketed after the Estates-General locked the Third Estate delegates out of the building, leading to the Third Estate convening at a tennis court and promising that they would not disband until a constitution was passed. After the French Revolution, the Estates-General was replaced with the National Assembly, which gave equal representation to all of the estates.